Current Research

Far North

[Submitted by Peter Bowers]

Several projects were performed in 1998 by Northern Land Use Research, Inc. (NLUR) of Fairbanks, under the general guidance of Peter Bowers. In June, test excavations were conducted for the National Park Service in Sitka. Fieldwork, directed by Catherine Williams, was carried out on a lot across the street from the Russian Bishop's House in preparation for placement of a cellar under the Priest's Quarters Building. An area of 32.5 m2 was excavated to depths between 40 and 120 cm below surface. An estimated 11,000 artifacts were recovered from a more-or-less homogeneous gravel-sand fill deposit. Artifacts range from recent to possibly Russian American period (faceted blue beads, ceramics, etc.), with no apparent correspondence between age of artifact and depth of recovery. No buried structures, dump deposits, or other obvious cultural features were encountered. Analysis is ongoing and is geared toward determining the extent of the mixing in the deposit and the source of the artifacts recovered. As part of two separate projects, archival research of the area is being performed by Bob Betts and Kathy Arndt.

In July, excavations were carried out at site DEL-185 near the Red Dog Mine located in the DeLong Mountains, western Brooks Range, approximately 90 miles north of Kotzebue. This site was originally investigated by Ed Hall and Craig Gerlach in the 1980s; planned mine expansion by Cominco Alaska, Inc., necessitated mitigation of the site during the 1998 field season. Mitigation efforts were guided by Co-Principal Investigators Peter Bowers and Craig Gerlach, with Catherine Williams as field director. The project benefited greatly from the enthusiastic participation of Northwest Alaska Native Association shareholders Tina Schaeffer and Andrea Greene. Mitigation included systematic surface collection over 7,650 m2, encompassing two spatially discrete loci of the site in addition to 98 m2 of excavation. Artifacts recovered include microblade cores, microblades, burins, bifaces and biface fragments, retouched flakes, thousands of flakes, and a number of large lanceolate projectile points. No organic remains or cultural features were discovered. Preliminary interpretations suggest that the site consists primarily of an American Paleoarctic tradition component, with an Arctic Small Tool (AST) tradition occupation also represented. In addition to excavations at DEL-185, a fluted biface was recovered from adjacent site DEL-163, and a small chert quarry (DEL-343) was briefly investigated. Additionally, a systematic survey was conducted in the vicinity of NOA-081, located along the Red Dog Mine Haul Road at Material Source #5 between Mud Lake Creek and the Omikviorok River. A few chert flakes and unmodified chert nodules, but no diagnostic artifacts, were recovered from the surface. Subsurface testing revealed no visible soil stratification and no evidence of buried cultural materials.

Surveys and excavations were carried out in July–August in Anaktuvuk Pass, central Brooks Range, with Peter Bowers and Craig Gerlach as Co-Principal Investigators and Robin Mills as field director. This work was performed for LCMF, Inc. and the North Slope Borough, in preparation for a realignment of the village's runway. Excavations of nearly 200 m2 at a proposed material source located on a glacial kame near Eleanor Lake revealed a significant prehistoric site (XCL-359) represented by 14 tent rings and 22 associated features (e.g., bone-processing areas, hearths, fire-cracked-rock concentrations). Large quantities of butchered caribou and sheep bones and lithic artifacts were recovered. Provisional interpretation of the prehistoric artifacts suggests a series of nonwinter processing and camping sites of possible AST tradition affiliation. Radiocarbon samples have been submitted to establish a chronology of occupations. One of the activity areas on the kame was suggestive of the early contact/historic period, as revealed by the co-occurrence of lithics with metal buttons, rifle cartridges, and other materials including metal-cut faunal remains. In addition to excavations on the elevated kame feature, NLUR crews surveyed and mapped 26 historical-period activity areas in the low-lying willow thickets adjacent to the present airstrip. Several localities, possibly the remains of Itchalik winter camps, were identified through oral testimony from village elders. These appear to relate to the initial settlement of Anaktuvuk Pass in the winter of 1949–1950 by the Panaek, Rulland, and Kakinya families and include stone tent rings, sled-dog yards, butchering areas, and other outside-structure activity areas. A related oral history project is being conducted by Vera Weber of the Simon Paneak Museum. Analyses are ongoing.

In late August and September, archaeological inventory was conducted on Forts Wainwright and Greely, central Alaska, under the direction of Andy Higgs and Peter Bowers. Reconnaissance surveys were carried out for the U.S. Army and ABR, Inc. in the Yukon Tanana uplands east of Fairbanks, along the Delta River, Delta Creek, and Little Delta River drainages. Seventeen new sites were recorded, and several sites previously identified by Chuck Holmes or John Cook were reinvestigated. NLUR returned to XBD-167, where two 1-m-deep test pits revealed bifaces, flakes, possible microblades, and charcoal from depths as great as 70 cm below surface. The artifacts from XBD-167 show primary and secondary stages of lithic reduction, primarily from chert cobbles assumed to have been procured from the nearby Little Delta River. A previously unknown site, XMH-839, was located along the East Fork of the Little Delta River, yielding 1 microblade, 2 bifaces, bone fragments, and charcoal at 10–15 cm below surface. Site XMH-838 was discovered in the vicinity of the Delta River Overlook site (XMH-297), with its in situ Holocene age (<3500 B.P.) bison bones previously investigated by Holmes and Glenn Bacon in the early 1980s. XMH-838 potentially represents a site of major significance, consisting of a 4-m-thick stratified deposit of loess and sand with 7 paleosols, chert and obsidian artifacts, faunal remains, and charcoal. A series of deep test pits revealed at least two cultural components, however, no diagnostic artifacts were recovered. Charcoal samples from XBD-167, XMH-838, and XMH-839 were submitted for radiocarbon dating. Data compilation, including geomorphologic analysis by Owen Mason and ArcView-based GIS mapping by Ron Navarro, is underway.